Winter Prey

face lined by forty-five winters in the North Woods. She worked in a video rental store, and she looked like . . . anybody. If you saw her in a K Mart, you wouldn’t notice her. But the Iceman had seen her having sex with the Harpers, father and son, simultaneously, one at each end, while her husband watched. Had watched her, watching the Iceman, as he taught her daughters to do proper blowjobs. She had seen her husband with their own daughters, had seen the Iceman with Rosie Harris and Mark Harris and Ginny Harris, the yellow-haired girl.
    She’d seen all that, done all that, and yet she could lose herself in a K Mart.
    He again approached the problem of what to do. Fight or run? This time, though, the problem seemed less like an endless snaky ball of possibilities and more like a single intricate but manageable organism.
    He was far from cornered. There were many things he might do. The image of John Mueller came to mind: red spots on white, like the eight of hearts, the red in the snow around the boy.
    John Mueller was an example.
    Action eliminated problems.
    It was time for action again.

CHAPTER

11
    Lucas stepped quietly into the house, pulled off his boots, and stopped to listen. The furnace had apparently just come on: the heating ducts were clicking and snapping as they filled with hot air and expanded. Weather had left a small light on over the sink. He tiptoed through the kitchen and living room, down the hall to the guest room, and turned on the light.
    The room felt unused, lonely. The bureau had been dusted, but there was nothing on top of it and the drawers were empty. A lamp and a small travel alarm sat on a bedstand, with a paper pad and a pen; the pad appeared to be untouched. The room was ready for guests, Lucas thought, but no guests ever came.
    He peeled off his parka, shirt, pants, and thermal underwear and tossed them on the bureau. He’d stopped at the motel and picked up his shaving kit and fresh underwear. He put them on the bedstand with his watch, took his .45 from its holster, jacked a shell into the chamber, and laid it next to the clock. After listening for another moment at the open bedroom door, he turned off the light and crawled into bed. The bed was too solid, too springy, as though it hadnever been slept in. The pillow pushed his head up. He’d never get to sleep.

    The bed sagged.
    Somebody there. Disoriented for a moment, he turned his head, opened his eyes. Saw a light in the hallway, remembered the weight. He half-sat, supporting himself with his elbows, and found Weather sitting on the end of the bed. She was dressed for work, carrying a cup of coffee, sipping from it.
    “Jesus, what time is it?”
    “A little after six. I’m outa here,” she said. She was stone-cold awake. “Thanks for coming over.”
    “Let me get up.”
    “No, no. Shelly’s sending a deputy over. I feel silly.”
    “Don’t. There’s nothing silly about it,” he said sharply.
    “And you should go somewhere else at night. Pick someplace at random. A motel in Park Falls. Tell us you’re leaving, and we’ll have somebody run interference for you out the highway to make sure you’re not followed.”
    “I’ll think about it,” she said. She patted his foot. “You look like a bear in the morning,” she said. “And your long underwear is cute. I like the color.”
    Lucas looked down at the long underwear; it was vaguely pink. “Washed it with a red shirt,” he mumbled. “And this is not the goddamn morning. Morning starts when the mailman arrives.”
    “He doesn’t get here until one o’clock,” Weather said.
    “Then morning starts at one o’clock,” he said. He dropped back on the pillow. “John Mueller?”
    “They never found him,” she said. “When the deputy called, I asked.”
    “Ah, God.”
    “I’m afraid he’s gone,” she said. She glanced at her watch.
    “And I’ve got to go. Make sure all the doors are locked, and go out through the garage when you leave. The garage door locks automatically.”
    “Sure. Would you . . .”
    “What?”
    “Have dinner with me tonight? Again?”
    “God, you’re rushing me,” she said. “I like that in a man. Sure. But why don’t we have it here? I’ll cook.”
    “Terrific.”
    “Six o’clock,” she said. She nodded at the bedstand as she went out the door. “That’s a big gun.”
    He heard the door to the garage open and close, and after that the house was silent. Lucas drifted back to sleep, now comfortable